Analogy
by Snakebyte42
Summary: This is my interpretation of what the digital universe could have been. Though you won't see many familiar characters or settings, this is, at its heart, a Digimon story. Kids trapped in a world of monsters, evil to be conquered... but there's more to it, isn't there? Look closely. Tell me what you see.
1. Death

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><strong>Chapter 1<strong> ****–**** Death

My name is Alex Requin, and I died today.

I'm here in a forest. The trees are bigger than any I've ever seen before, and I don't see any signs of... anything. I tried walking around for a while but now it's getting cold. I don't know what to do. I don't know what this is. I don't see anything. There are no trails, no buildings, no smoke, I can't hear cars or sirens or shouts and now I can't even see the sun.

Am I dreaming?

I've been waiting to wake up for so long, to go back to just another normal day. Her face is blurring, but I'll never forget that last sound. She tripped, or was pushed, or, I don't know, it would be so easy to blame someone for it but she just _tripped_. She was wearing those stupid shoes. I don't know why she bothered. Dad left years ago, and no one else had looked twice at her since, but she still wore those stupid shoes.

She tripped, but the train was coming. It didn't stop. I was already running when I heard the brakes and the crack and a bit later the screams. It was a wet sound. I don't know how I got home, but I did, somehow. I felt a rush through my body and then I just stopped thinking for a while.

I went to class the next day, and the day after that. No one cared. No one came. I don't think anyone even noticed that something was wrong. The food ran out pretty quickly. We had gone shopping that day, but she was carrying most of it when she...

It's all online, these days. I knew her code. She told me once, a long time ago, for... this, and I can't pretend I didn't use it once in a while. She probably knew, but she never brought it up. I can't think of how stupid that was, how she must have felt. It hurts too much. But I had everything I needed to take some money.

It didn't last long. I never really knew how much life cost. I went back again, and then a third time, draining it all, until there was no more coming. We never had much money, but it never mattered to her. She was always telling me that there were more important things and we had them, that we were better than that. I guess she was right. We were happy, most of the time.

I just kept trying to live like nothing was wrong, like I was in a daze. Some days I thought she might just walk through the door, or I might wake up in bed and think she was home, and that everything would be fine. I went to school. I did the work. I shopped. I ate. I even played video games and talked to friends. It was like admitting it, even to myself, would break me down. It was like denial was a bandage holding in all the blood I had.

I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't even think of doing anything.

There was only so much money.

The landlady came by first, must have knocked at the door and yelled for a good half hour, but I kept quiet and waited. She went away. She came back again and again but never used her key. The other bills were easier to ignore. They were just pieces of paper. I had a pile of them in a corner that kept getting taller, but they didn't make noise, wake me up at night.

I bought a chain for the door, and got an A in Chemistry.

I don't know how long it took. Half the time, I wasn't thinking at all. Someone else was moving my body around while I just faded in and out and watched time pass. If I was thinking, I'd have known it would all fall apart and done something, called someone, figured it out somehow. But it took me by surprise.

One day, I came home and the lights didn't work. I was almost broke. I'd been stealing food, selling what we owned; games, jewelry, anything to keep from starving. I don't know if they'd found something and traced it back here or if that bitch just really wanted her rent but not much later someone started trying to break down the door.

What could I do?

I couldn't leave. I couldn't keep going. I had nothing left. This was the first moment of acceptance and clarity I'd had in... weeks? Months? I'd go to jail or starve and freeze on the streets. There was nowhere else to go, no one to turn to. I had nothing. There were no roads leading anywhere.

But I had a balcony.

We lived on the tenth floor, and for those five seconds, I was free.

Now I'm here in clothes I wasn't wearing with a bag I didn't pack, shivering in a blanket that I don't recognize under trees I've never seen before in my life.

What do I do now?

I've been hearing something moving, coming closer, and I'm actually scared.

I can't imagine why. Didn't I want to die?

I can see it. It's some kind of animal. Grey, I think, but it's hard to tell in the dark. A dog, or a wolf, maybe? There's nowhere for me to go. I couldn't outrun it if I tried.

It's just standing over me and sniffing. I'm shaking. I can't move. I start crying and I know I shouldn't make noise but I can't stop and I'm crying for her, too, like I never could before. It moves, and now it's right beside me, lying there, waiting, keeping me warm.

I guess I won't freeze, after all.


	2. Shade

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><strong>Chapter 2 <strong>–<strong>** Shade

I was somewhere else when I woke up, or at least that's what it looked like. I couldn't tell, for sure. It didn't feel like I'd moved. I was lying just the same way I'd been before, the grass crushed all around me, but there was something about the trees.

They weren't the same trees.

I don't know how else to say it. They were in the same places, but they weren't so high anymore. They didn't block out the sun as much, just kept me in the shade. I'd think I was going crazy, but I'm already here, alone in a place beyond death surrounded by shapeshifting trees and oddly benevolent wolves. I'm not sure there's that much crazy left to go.

I got up slowly. There didn't seem to be any hurry. I'd died once, after all. How much worse could it really get?

I took a look around but there really wasn't anything else to see. It was the same thing in every direction; patterned, in a way that it really shouldn't have been. It was made, grown, not left to ramble, but it still didn't tell me anything. Not who grew it or why, not where they were or where I am, or why.

What am I supposed to do?

I whispered it at first, then shouted it, hoarse and crying, but nothing answered no matter how many times I tried. Eventually the birds started to sing again. There was nothing else out here. I was alone.

After a while, I started to walk. I just picked a direction at random. I didn't know where I was, and I didn't feel like waiting around long enough to see which way the sun was moving. Straight was as good a direction as any.

I didn't find anything. There was nothing new to see. More trees, more birds... A noise. Maybe I'd heard it before, I don't know. But there was something about it that made going closer seem like a bad idea.

After a while, I started to run.

The forest lasted longer than my breath. I slowed down, panting, and again there was nothing to see and just birdsong in my ears. I couldn't run if it came again, not anywhere worth running. Gradually the birds grew quiet. I stood still, muscles tensed. Nothing moved.

"H... Hello?" I whispered, but it seemed at least as loud as the beating of my heart. Why did I _do_ that? What kind of suicidal impulse is that, trying to will the unknown into something that will answer back with words rather than tooth or claw?

But this time it did.

There were two of them, and I could just barely see them through the leaves. There was no time to think it through, to wonder what it meant, as they were already coming, already pushing through the branches between us.

"Hey, wait! It's okay!" The one in the front was doing the talking. He was tall and muscular, but I was taller, and his hair was blond to my black. His voice was loud. I couldn't think of anything to say. "I thought I saw you before," he said, his eyes narrowing, close enough now for us to talk comfortably. "What's wrong? _I'm_ not gonna hurt you."

"I thought I... Never mind." I shook my head. What on earth was there to say?

"Well, _don't_, alright?" He chuckled nervously, scratching the back of his head. "I'm Terry," he said, extending his hand.

"Alex," I replied. After a moment, I shook it. I tried moving my mouth, but nothing else came out. He was looking around with a sense of wonder.

"I just can't believe this place, y'know?" His voice was so different from mine. What did he think it was? What did he know that I missed? "It's just too good to be true." He grinned, suddenly embarrassed, and turned his eyes back to me. "Sorry, I've just... been waiting for this. For a long time."

"I..." _Waiting for what?_ I wanted to ask—_What is this? Where are we?_—but my mouth hadn't caught up with my brain.

"Right! Well. I guess... I... should... figure out where we're going!" He turned to look at one of the trees beside me, walked up to it and put his hand on it for a moment before chuckling in approval. He turned back over his shoulder to look at me and smiled reassuringly. "I'll be back in a minute or two!" he said, and started to climb the damn thing.

I guess I kept staring for a while as he disappeared up the trunk, because when I felt something brush against my upper arm, it was like I'd been shocked. I whirled around, telling myself that I could face whatever the hell lived in this forest, but there was just a girl.

"I'm sorry...!" She had jumped back, but was now standing motionless, her wide eyes staring into mine. Her voice was hardly louder than a breath. "I needed to know if you were real."

I reached out and slowly placed my hand over hers. I tried to smile. She bowed her head at the touch, looking down at the ground.

"I don't even know what happened. We were driving home and then... lights, and everything started spinning, and when it stopped I couldn't feel my legs and my father wasn't breathing. I didn't know anything could hurt that much, but it stopped, and I was here, but it wasn't here." She stopped, willing me to say something, to know something, but I didn't, and more words tumbled out of her.

"It was like a painting. It was here, but it wasn't a real place, and then he came and made it real, and now I'm here and it doesn't hurt anymore but I don't know what it _is_. I don't know what I am." I held her hand tightly, and she gripped back. It felt real, the first real thing in a long time.

"I'm Alex," I said, "and until I met you I thought I was dead." Her head snapped up to look at me again, and somehow she ended up in my arms. Not crying, not laughing, nothing like that, just holding me as I held her, the last solid things left. After a while, she backed away, grinning cautiously through her long, dark hair.

"Thank you," she said. She inclined her head upwards. "He didn't... I didn't know what to say. My name's Mitsuko. I-Oh!" I took a step back. A small brown and grey bird had flown down from above and landed on her shoulder. Its talons dug into her skin, but her smile was wider than any she'd given me.

"It was in the... the painting. I didn't know if it would come back!" She reached up with her other hand and rubbed its neck. It preened. She turned to look at me again, and this time her eyes were alive and dancing. "Want to figure out where we're going?"

I blinked.

"Watch this." The bird suddenly shot upwards, winging its way through the canopy until I lost sight of it in the branches. She let out a sudden snort of laughter before her eyes glazed over. A noise behind us caused us both to turn. The blond boy was there, a few feet up the tree. Something hardened in his expression. Automatically, almost guiltily, I let go of Mitsuko's hand and took a step away from her, surprised to find her doing the same. A moment passed. He was slow to speak.

"There's a mountain—"

"—over there," the girl interrupted, pointing. "And over there," she turned and swept her hand in the other direction, "it looks like ocean." I hadn't noticed, but the bird was back, perching on her other hand. There was real anger in the boy's face, now. I could see him gritting his teeth, snarling, but he was interrupted again by a noise I had heard before, but a lot louder.

A lot closer.

We all started to run.

I could feel the noise as well as hear it. It pulsed through me, coming from everywhere and nowhere, until it got louder. Then I knew it was coming from behind us. I looked over my shoulder in time to see the trees part and a monstrous insect appear between them, flying just above the ground. Its wings were blurs that were longer than my arm. It was gaining.

"Go!" I yelled. "I know this thing. I've got a plan!" I don't know if they heard me, but they kept running. I turned around and stood my ground. It stopped about thirty feet away from me, landing heavily, clicking its legs and fangs. It was bigger than anything I'd ever seen before. My hand flew to my hip and closed on the handle of a knife that I didn't even know I had. It's cold and I'm afraid.

I don't have a plan.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **I can't work out how much to put here. I could probably fill this up for ages talking about where I'm going and what I'm doing with the story, but I think it's better to let it speak for itself. This chapter is quite a bit longer than the first, and I rewrote most of it at least once. I haven't worked out any ideal length or update schedule, mostly because I wrote and posted the first chapter more or less in one night, and didn't really expect to get that done.

All feedback is welcome, but all questions might not be answered. Oh, and I'm going to stick the date in here, because I hate it when I'm reading something and there's no indication of when previous updates were posted.

**~01/07/12**


	3. Virtue

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><strong>Chapter 3 –<strong> Virtue

My name is Terry Gilchrist and, right now, I'm alive.

In a few weeks... Well, let's just say no one's making any promises, but I'm here now and I'm not out of tomorrows quite yet.

I haven't thought much about where 'here' is. Maybe I would, if it stayed the same long enough for me to pay attention, but every time it's something new. It was just the smell at first, and when I asked they told me it's just something we do, 'the brain conjures a familiar scent to put itself at ease', but next time I went under I closed my eyes and I was _there_ on the field. All I saw were faceless shapes kicking a ball around but the smell, fresh-cut grass and sweat, I'd know that anywhere. It was my life, once.

It's so much more than that now.

I've rescued slaves and freed damsels in distress, toppled evil kings and played poker with dragons, danced under the stars and ran away from angry mobs and sometimes I just ran. I'd gone without running for so long it felt like part of me died, but it all came rushing back.

Here is where I'm whole. Here is where I matter, where I never falter, where there's always something over the next hill and I'm always strong enough to face it. Here's where I can be me when it hurts too much to think or when I need to see something besides pity in a face, when I need a place that's mine.

Here's where I go when I'm not, and it's better every time.

* * *

><p>Today was a good day. I'm having more good days than bad, lately. More time here, less time... it's just been flashes, of light and pain. But today was a good day. I was here, the trees were tall and smelled like trees, not like the other place. The smells aren't right in dreams, you ever notice that? That's how I know this is real.<p>

Today there was a girl. A cute little thing, I'd have liked her back when I went to school. Maybe she'd have liked me, too, but then _he_ came along and tried to take her from me. He didn't understand. He didn't get that all of this was mine.

What, you think I'd come here this much and not pick up a few things?

It's easy to make the world do what you want. You just have to let it know and keep pushing, keep staring it down until it gives in. Even the tricky things. It always does when it's me asking.

So when that kid made me look like an idiot in front of the only girl in the world, I changed. I pulled in the fabric of the world around me into wings, an exoskeleton, slashing chitinous scythes. The air fills with a harsh buzz and I'm something else, something hungry and loud and large and I'm coming for him.

He tries to be a hero, to send us off (because _of course_ I'm still there, leaving an echo of me is _nothing_ when all the world is mine), and they run, her and 'me', and I, I'm not anymore, a stumbling cloud of compound eyes and thoracic plates, all slaver and need, and, damn it, I—_damn it_—I lunge.

The look in his eyes. He didn't know. He didn't know what he had done as I went for his throat and there was nothing in his eyes but fear. No guilt, no shame, no resignation, no spark of anything but terror.

He hasn't moved.

* * *

><p>I can't move.<p>

I don't think my heart's ever beat this fast before. My body's primed to do something, anything, surging with whatever chemicals bodies save for times like this, but I can't move and I don't know what to do.

Why is it waiting? Doesn't it know there's nothing up my sleeve? Am I just so fucking _amusing_ as I stand here and squirm that it—

Oh.

It's coming.

I throw myself to the side but not fast enough, not far enough, it's there before I can even blink, slashing and hungry but there's something in the air. It's a flash of cold and I'm looking through fog and then there are teeth clamped down and frost writes itself across the blade in elaborate cursive curlicues and I am not dead.

I am not dead. I am alive, in fact, and running, though I keep turning my head to make sure I didn't lose my mind. The wolf, the one from before, it just came together from the air and it's fighting that thing... For me? Its fur swirls with blue and grey. Ice forms on whatever it touches. It's fighting for me.

Hell, it's actually winning.

The thing's still alive, though it's moving slower and full of scars. My wolf is faster but tiring; its ears perk up and nostrils flare just as the thing pulls back for one last swing. My wolf looks at me, no, _above_ me, and sublimates into a cloud that the scythe passes through harmlessly before he disappears completely. I'm alone again now and it sees me, it's still hungry, but I hear something else on the wind.

And then the sky is alive. They drop like stones but land feather-softly; one, three, ten, until they fill the space between the trees. They're all the same but I don't want to look at them, I don't want to be here, I want to be gone.

They are still. The wind rustles quills and tiny gripping hairs, brushes across membranous wings, but there is no other sound until they move and then only the rapid thrumming of their flight.

I try to look away but there _is_ no away, everywhere I look is more of them, more monsters the shape of men, so I look down and think about stopping the bile from bubbling up out of my throat instead of what their eyes looked like or the way their limbs bent, what they had instead of mouths.

I stare at the ground, open-mouthed and slack-jawed, because it is the only thing that fits into my mind. My wolf, or, or whatever it was is gone, and I'm here and trapped and I don't—what can I—Something cracks and my gaze snaps upwards. My _wolf_ is gone, yes, but the thing it fought is still fighting. It was hurt, frost still crawled across its wounds, but I could see its eyes: it didn't give a _shit._ Quickly, far faster than it had moved before, it snapped two of them from the sky in gouts of yellow-white ichor. Parts of one dripped to the ground. Stray legs vanished between its fangs.

It's fast but they're faster, and there are more of them. For every one it takes down, there are three behind it, two above, another coming in from the side. It only has so many limbs, and as it swings again, they swarm it, the scythe deadened in a swarm of buzzing wings, they _pull_ and...

It's gone. It's just gone. They're holding the blade but the rest of it shattered into the air and that blond boy is left stumbling in its place. I'm sure I felt something, shouted something, but I was beyond surprise. I remember feeling like I wasn't even there, that it was unreal, dreaming, out of my hands.

I felt one. It rubbed against me and before I could even think I was shoving the knife I didn't even remember I had into its—I don't know, chest? Thorax? Heart?—again and again, it cracked and oozed and cut into my hand but I didn't stop until it fell backward on its first set of knees, my own blood dripping down after it.

They had all stopped. They were all staring. I was the center and everything was still. In a story I'd have said something clever, offered some witty retort and brandished my blade, made like a typical action hero and took them all on with nothing but spunk and bravery.

I didn't. I stood still and kept silent, even as the blond boy shouted at me, called me a coward and far fouler things. I was frozen. He was right.

They left.

* * *

><p>In the warm heart of the cliff, the drones massed, bearing a gift for their master. The walls beat with their hearts, pulsed with their mind, and as long as they were there they felt... were made to feel... a sense of togetherness, parts close to being whole.<p>

Something green gleamed in the chamber's far wall. Responding to some unseeable signal, one moved, gripping an outcropping with its talons and pulling it apart. The naked torso of a boy flopped forward, pale from lack of sun. It—he—hung from the wall by his arms, his elbows vanishing into it. His red hair hung long and limp around his face, but his green eyes were bright.

"Bring it here," he half-whispered, his voice rusty with disuse.

It took two of three of them to lift it, the blade they had severed from the beast they fought, still scarred with bite-marks and pockmarked from cold. They held it before him, turning it as he took it all in, standing faithfully by as his eyes welled with tears, as his throat thickened with grief.

"Matt...?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **So I think I'm just going to pretend this _didn't_ take me over a year to get right, if that's alright with you. Plans for this remain ridiculously massive and I have no intention of stopping. Going very slow... _perhaps. _Oh, and I'm very sorry for the mid-chapter POV change. Hopefully it isn't too confusing. While POVs will be changing all over the place, I'll try to stop it from happening mid-chapter in the future, but no guarantees.

More to come soon probably maybe hopefully. As always, I'll answer questions unless they're spoilerrific.

**~01/24/13**


	4. Wind-Up Soldier

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><strong>Chapter 4 – <strong>Wind-Up Soldier

I can hear them crying out for me before I even reach the doorway. As soon as their voices reach my ears, all pain, all thoughts of dented bloodstains leave my mind, and I walk proud and tall. I hold my head high and bask on their pride, the returned hero, gleaming with borrowed light.

Jace wants to know where I've been, Meryl fusses over my wounds, Connor's already criticizing me for damaging the suit, along with dozens more, too many to name. They all want to know where I've been, what I've done, and how I stayed alive. I know the protocol. I just give them a smile.

I am but a cog in the machine—Enclave 7932/Substrate Aleph-5, Operative 6—and I just saved the world.

Between endless debriefing sessions, countless councils of immaculately groomed men and disheveled avatars, they shuffled in. A hesitant knocking on the door to my quarters, faces I'd known only as a pair of downcast eyes in a hallway suddenly blubbering thanks in tongues I barely understand, shoving made or stolen or hard-earned gifts I can't possibly accept into my hands with a stammered goodbye, glad to be alive.

These are the refugees of a shattered world, and I am the steward of their dreams. One of many, that is. A face in a crowd. Just another uniformed warrior keeping peace alive.

What you have to understand is that we're part of this world; we don't just live on it, like we did on Earth. That kind of life is gone; maybe forever, maybe just for a little while, but long enough that we have to adapt. The way the Mekanordinators tell it, we're as essential to this place as blood cells are to us. We give it what it needs. We fix it when it breaks. We fight the little battles, burn away the cancer and the filth, and make sure the world can thrive.

Identity isn't something we respect in the enclaves. If time has taught us one thing, it's that people don't work. They wind down. They lead to war, to chaos, to ruin. We are bigger than names. We are one glorious machine, always turning, gearing up to something incredible. Why keep the problems of the old world when we can build a better one in its place?

I was a novice in our grand undertaking until seven decacyles ago, when the Hadrian collapse knocked out a whole squad of Pathology-class troubleshooters—even a pair of Terrorvores, and I've never seen one of those things die short of a full-scale entropic fade. Promotion was fast after that. I even have my own recruits to train now; Travian, Ortiz, Cassandra... Their names are active still, they haven't earned their numbers.

I don't have a name. I am a unit of the machine entity; as a reward for obedience, I am offered some degree of autonomy. I can think, I can feel, I can make snap judgements that a remotely-piloted guardrone could never process information fast enough to match. Top-of-the-line perceptifilters beam data directly into my visual cortex, providing a statistical overlay of where I need to hit you in order to make you bleed the most.

I am a weapon. I am honed sharper than a person, sharper than a mind. I am a veteran, surviving both the Liandri conflict and the Lascaille incursion with nothing more than a scathed ego and a bruised will where others lost so much more than their lives.

If I am to be a tool I will be piston-perfect and never dull. I will not falter when the hand that wields me is steady. I will not stray from my duty when doing what must be done. I will be methodical, exacting, resolute.

I will gleam.

I will not think of the blood.

Those are thoughts of a person. Thoughts of weakness, of a single mind, not trained in the ways of, of systemthought and I will not, I will, I will not...

Sometimes I just want to go home.

I don't have long. They'll be coming for me again, dragging me off for another calibration, removing these doubts from me. Removing myself. I get these moments once in a while, where I'm not whatever they want to be, whatever title they want to make me think I've earned, where I'm just me again.

Hey. We haven't properly met yet. I'm Sam.

Sometimes it's like I'm living in a dream. It all makes sense for a while, buoyed up by this incredible sense of purpose, all my insecurities left behind on the ground while I stride across the sky. For a while. And then some facade cracks and I can see through the holes, see the fluid running through the walls, the gristle on the floors. A filter will slip and suddenly I can see the price—

"Operative 6, come with me."

It is her. The matriarch. She rarely comes out in public now, her cerebromatter grown unwieldy with age and countless enhancements. Her spidrous dronechair clinks and catches on the carpet. Her fluid intakes brush against the side of the room, scattering them at her touch. Even the walls are afraid.

"Operative 6." This time there is no patience in her voice. "Come with me at once." I know what'll come. I know the needles and the wires and I know that I will forget—or I'll remember but it won't matter—because I'll want to. I'll want to forget myself again, to serve a cause, to lose my name.

By the way, it's Sam. Did I tell you?

Some small part of me that wants this. It has to. Or else it wouldn't work. Some small part of me sees this and knows the price and weighs the costs and goes for the reward. Every time. It wouldn't work if I didn't.

But I gain so much. Before this place I couldn't live. Not really live. I couldn't matter. They'd pretend and hold me up and push me around but really it was them, and I was just a burden, humoured and tugged along. I couldn't stand on my own. I was just Sam, and now—

"Do not make me ask again."

Don't forget. Don't forget.

I remember the good days. The cold days, because summer heat just reminded of things I couldn't have. But there were some days, weren't there? When we all sat around the table, and, and when we... There must have been some good days? Something better than this?

I don't want to go.

But I will.

There's a world to save.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Yes.

**~04/28/13**


	5. Trial and Error

.**  
>Chapter 5 – <strong>Trial and Error

"I will fucking destroy it, do you hear me?" The blonde boy was aimlessly weaving his way around the clearing, acting out his aggression with the arm of his that still worked. The other hung uselessly against his side, flapping against his hip as if to punctuate how far his statements were from coming true.

He'd been going on like that for hours, snarling and carrying on at length about how he was the one who mattered and how dare it and frankly it all got a little bit old. It was obvious he'd never seen anything like this before. It was obvious he was terrified, trying to work out his anger on something that wouldn't push back, lashing out to heal his wounded pride.

He'd tried me first, grabbing the front of my shirt and hurling insults into my face until I could feel spit splashing against it. He stopped before long, when I didn't react at all. I was focused on other things. I've never seen anything like this either, and I'm honest enough to tell you when I'm afraid.

My hands were shaking. I'd died, you see, and that wasn't such a bad thing in my shoes. I wasn't expecting to be alive afterwards, much less somewhere else. I wasn't expecting to run for the life I thought I didn't want, to see things I'd never dreamed of, that if I did I'd have woken up screaming, but, well.

Life throws these curveballs at you sometimes.

Hi. I'm Alex Requin, and I don't like being fucked with.

I was focused now. I opened my mouth and saw the world, saw this impotent ass as what he was; a tool, and nothing more. He saw me, too, locked onto my eyes as I looked upwards and was already stomping towards me, hands curled into a fist and a half. I met his gaze with a grin.

"Oh look, he's back with us. Mister absolutely fucking useless _deigned_ to join us again. What'cha gonna do _now,_ bitch? I don't even _see_ the girl, so you can't hit on her, what else do you even do? Just stand there?" The scorn dripped from him, but I smiled—No, that was too nice a word for what I did. I bared my teeth.

"What I'm going to do is find those things and break parts off until they scream." I kept grinning, but his expression went wary. He didn't like not being on top, but I could see his calculating eyes, and soon his smile matched mine.

"Alright. Good ol' revenge, I can live with that. You're gonna have to learn some things first, though. About this place works. How you survive."

I could see how much it hurt him to bite back his pride, but I could use what he knew. It wouldn't hurt to suck it up and feed his ego for a few days. I nodded, extending a hand, hoping I made it look good enough, hoping he saw what he wanted to see. He grasped it, looking over me, judging, and smiled again before letting his hand drop and, a moment later, taking a swing at my face with all his strength.

I could have stopped it. I thought I'd figured out the knack, the kind of—it wasn't quite a feeling, more like a place you had to push in your mind, the place I'd pushed when I thought I'd die in the night and again with the monster. I could have called it, the cold thing in the air with teeth, and stopped him. It wouldn't even have been a fight. But I let him take the shot. I cried out and let the blow knock me back to the ground. He laughed, spouting off some absurd justification, and extended a hand to help me up again.

It was fine. He could have this moment. He can be the big man for now, for a few hours, for a day or two, until I don't need him anymore.

And then it'll all be mine.

* * *

><p><em>I thought I was going mad the first time I saw it. Taichi had just ordered his dinosaur to immolate another one of their pawns, and this time I watched. I don't know why I didn't watch before. Fear? I thought I was beyond that, there've been times... We've all faced death, now. We're all still here. Was I just squeamish?<em>

_This time I watched._

_I **know** what I was expecting. I've studied anatomy. I'm not **stupid**, even if I am a child. There should have been bones. There should have been ash. Charred blood, smoking chunks of skin and flesh, something worth the bile in my throat, the choked feeling in my lungs, but I steeled myself for nothing. The thing just flaked and peeled away into the sky. There was nothing left behind._

_It happened again. And again. Every time we **really** fought one of them, every time we scored a **true and decisive** victory... Nothing left. Not even dust. It didn't matter how we killed them. It wasn't that we were using disintegration beams or anything, we weren't ripping molecules apart, they just **weren't there anymore.** It didn't happen to anything else. Trees were fine, they just burned or froze or broke apart. When one of those fireballs engulfed part of a building or a hill or a patch of desert instead of whatever thing was trying to kill us that day, it only left scorch marks. So... what was going on?_

_You... I don't know if anyone will ever read this but if you do—if you are out there days or months or years from now and judging who I am and what I've done—you have to understand that I wanted nothing more than to be a scientist. I thought that still mattered, then. I thought I might go back. I know better—We all do, we know so much more about why we're here, what we are, what this means—but then, I still thought my ambitions mattered. I was rigorous._

_There were experiments._

_I couldn't just **forget**. I knew too much about how the world was supposed to work to let it go that easily. My... my curiosity, I guess... took me to some dark places. I guess that's why, later on, I was so quick to give it up. As soon as I could get away, when Tai and the others were busy with some argument or complaining about how much their feet hurt or—I don't even remember anymore—I crept off and found some small smiling thing with big eyes and no fear and tore it apart just so I could watch it bleed._

_And it **did** bleed! That was the thing! I was so shocked and excited that I almost ran to tell them before I remembered myself, remembered what it would look like, what I'd really done. I looked at its broken body and tried to feel some kind of shame but I couldn't. I'd made a **discovery**. It was **important.** That, then and now, is all I could feel._

_And besides, it couldn't hurt to double-check._

_Koushiro Izumi, Probably July  
>~<em>

The yellow-and-white rectangle slid to the floor—was quickly retrieved and placed where it was accustomed, laid millimeter-perfect over the hole in the dust—as the servitors' attention faltered. The man in the wall cricked his neck with what little range of motion he had, his eyes still sore from staring even if they weren't quite human anymore.

He could stay like this for hours, sometimes, reliving the past.

He was still sure the things he had done had been right. It was harder to think, now, through the clacking buzzing susurrus that flowed through the missing parts of his mind, but enough was left. Enough of him worked to pretend to be whole.

He couldn't have told them. He'd learned and he couldn't have told them and it probably killed them but even then, even now, he thought it was better. The weight of it would have broken their minds.

He'd done right by them. He'd been entirely illogical. He'd let them die.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Terribly sorry, the second half of this was intended to be about twice as long and spell things out rather more explicitly, but in the interest of actually publishing something once in a while I'm cutting it short and sticking the rest into a future chapter or something. I've had the first half written since May and the italicized bit written for at least a month. Enough's enough, ever onward.

I can't right-align things here. This is very frustrating. It also isn't letting me line break things properly.

Oh, and yeah, I aten't dead.

**~11/04/13**


	6. Flywheel

.  
><strong>Chapter 6 <strong>–<strong>** Flywheel

I was a child when I came here. My father brought me. He told me my mother stayed behind and it was years before I understood what that meant. She stayed because it's where she'll always stay. Her body's buried there, and he just didn't want to say the words out loud.

I can't fault him for it. He did his best. He tried as hard as he could to make a good life for me, and he didn't always fail. I was sometimes ungrateful. I didn't understand why he did things a certain way. I ignored him, I thought he was _old_ and that it didn't matter what he thought.

But that's the way of it, is it not?

We are only ashamed when people die.

I am in a forest. I've been turned around more than one too many times and everything looks the same. I'm getting tired. I've been walking for too long. My feet hurt, and I'm not getting anywhere new. This group of trees looks the same as all the others and I look behind me and I can barely see a branch I remember breaking but there's another broken branch and I don't know which is mine.

I've become unhitched. There are no bearings to take in a place like this. My bird flew up into the branches to see if there was anything but something moved up there in the darkness and I felt a kind of severance.

I don't think it's coming back.

He warned me. He said, Mitsuko, don't you play in forests. I thought, why should I be scared of trees? What can a tree do to anyone? It sounded wonderful. So many growing things, away from the smog and the stench of the city.

I understand now, father. You didn't do too badly, even though the lesson came a little late. I think you died, do you know that? There was something wrong with your hands and the car was spinning, and... it hurt. I woke up here when the pain stopped.

It's a different place. There are barely any people; I'm alone now, but I wasn't always. There were two boys; you'd have been upset with me just for talking to them, but they were only trying to help. There was some kind of creature hunting us, and I had to run away.

They didn't find me.

I couldn't find myself.

But you shouldn't feel bad about not being here to protect me. You've done all I could ask. I didn't have a bad life, and you know I loved you. If you're up there looking down, don't worry. I can't walk anymore. I have to rest, I have to sleep, and this patch of ground is as good as any.

I hear things, though, in the forest. I've been hearing them for a while. If I stop moving as fast as I have, whatever's making those noises might find me.

I might not wake up.

I don't know how long it's been. I don't even know if I would see sunlight through the trees. It might have set, or it might just not reach this far down.

I'm going to close my eyes, I think.

Have I done that already? Is that why it's so dark?

I can almost see you.

* * *

><p><em>We had to cross a lake, and there were these boats in the shape of swans just waiting for us. It didn't make sense, but why should it when nothing else did? I'd found nothing that could explain the payphones, the traffic lights. What were the power lines for? Why did they stretch across a <strong>desert<strong> when we couldn't even find the people who **used** that power, let alone the ones who must have put them there?_

_I didn't get it. No one else even cared. They were all too busy being happy or scared or sad, fighting monsters, looking for magic jewelry because some projected recording of an old man told us it might be a good idea._

_He knew I was suspicious, I could see it in his eyes, but I played along because there was still something to learn. He was giving us a narrative with no underlying logic, but it was better than nothing. Even if every word out of his mouth was a lie, it was a point of data I didn't have before, and the more I knew, the more I'd be able to know._

_Maybe that strikes you as overly optimistic. Maybe you're like them, one of the happily stupid kinds of people who never try to learn anything and think they'll be fine without that knowledge. When you wander into an obvious trap or take something for granted that you shouldn't, when you **die**, I'll be over here **laughing** because no matter what the others say this place has rules. Even if they aren't like the old ones, they're real._

_I got a glimpse of them today._

_The boats were fine, even if they didn't make any sense at all. I couldn't see or hear a motor, there weren't oars, they just took us there like they were on some invisible rails I couldn't see. None of them wanted to hear how ridiculous this was. They were boats, of course they went places! That's what boats did! These people and their little minds!_

_I'm embarrassed to say I didn't see it when it happened. I had my head out the window, trying to drown out their insipid conversations about past lives and what they'd do when they 'got home', like it was some kind of **guarantee** that they would, that our home even **existed** still. I was angry, and I wasn't looking. The first I heard of it was the splash._

_Matt's little brother, the stupid kid we've been tugging around—because it's that or leave him somewhere and even I'll admit there's nowhere safe—was acting like he'd seen something in the water. No one was looking too closely, and after this... moment of frozen horror, Matt was yelling at **everyone**, and the boat was still moving and none of us knew how to stop it—because of course there were no controls, with no visible method of propulsion why would they expect there to be any controls?—and suddenly this became my problem, like it was my fault no one appointed a babysitter and I'm supposed to have all the answers to everything exactly when they need them and **shut up** the rest of the time because thinking makes their brains hurt._

_For a moment I wanted him to drown._

_A moment._

_Because at least it would teach them a lesson, at least then they'd realize the kind of fucking world we're in and start **trying** a little **harder** and—Matt was saying his brother couldn't swim, that he'd never learned, and Sora was crying. Tai had his arm around her but wasn't doing much better. Joe—of course it was Joe—fiddled around with his bag and then dove after him while everyone was busy being sad._

_He was fine, of course. Joe's giant narwhalrus cut through the water like a knife and brought him to shore just a little ahead of us. We all ran out to see him. Some of them embraced him, all teary-eyed happiness and relief, but I hung back and watched._

_Something was off._

_He didn't look scared enough. He wasn't reacting like he should and I didn't know why until I talked to him later, when the novelty of terror had worn off and the others went back to ignoring him most of the time._

_He apologized to me then. He said he didn't understand before. He didn't know how dangerous it was because he'd never been in deep water and he didn't know that he needed air to breathe. He said Joe told him but that it sounded weird because he hadn't panicked or anything and he was pretty sure he'd taken a breath or two while he was under the water, looking around. He said there were plants and fish and all sorts of things he'd never seen before, and was really excited to tell me about all of them before he remembered that—according to Joe at least, who knew more about these things than he did—he'd almost died._

_He said he was sorry, that he'd be more careful next time. That it wouldn't happen again. That we didn't have to worry about him, he wasn't a baby and he could take care of himself like the rest of us._

_He didn't know he was supposed to be drowning, so he didn't drown._

_It made sense._

_Koushiro Izumi, September or so_

* * *

><p>I was back to running missions in two weeks. There weren't enough of us. I should have had more time, but that's always the way of things; they push those who don't push back. The truth is I didn't mind. Another day, another <em>second<em> of staring at white walls, at diagnostic screens, and I think I'd have gone mad.

That's a joke.

You're supposed to laugh.

Joking helps cover up the horrible thing I did. It makes it easier if we laugh. That way you're not staring at me when I'm not looking and wondering if I'll break, who will die the _next_ time I falter.

They tell me the reprogramming will hold. That everything is fine. It happens to the best of us. Nothing to worry about. A routine, perfectly executed procedure.

Then why (why why _why_) is there a name in my head when I've surrendered it? Why am I still seeing things that can't be real? I've lived here all my life. They found me in a reclamation zone when I was three months old, next to the corpse of my mother. I do not remember that. I do not remember her. I remember years of this place. So why is it fading away?

It's Sam, if you were wondering. The name I can't forget. And the things I see are grey and ragged faces, things barely made of flesh, pumped full of pulsing intravenuous cables and surrounded by machines.

And you don't care. And I'm rambling. They say it sometimes takes time to take hold.

I'm flying to the mountains. They say there's activity in the Hive that can't be easily explained. They're asking for a set of eyes.

No one really thinks Izumi's alive, not after all this time.

It's probably nothing.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** This is about a third of what I was going to post. I came back to this story with a clear idea of what I wanted to do; to paint a picture through a series of snapshots of everyone and everything that's going on. Reading back through this story, a lot of it feels haphazard and incomplete, especially because of how long I go between updates. It's lacking coherence, and I wanted to fix that going forward. Unfortunately, the next scene involves the introduction of two new characters, and it's getting so big that it doesn't fit well in that model. The snapshot thing only works if the scenes are pretty close in size, and... well, they aren't.

Chapter 7 will introduce two new characters and also catch up with Alex and Terry.  
>Chapter 8 will follow up on everyone mentioned in this chapter and most likely feature its original ending. Maybe other things, too.<br>Chapter 9 will be what Chapter 7 would have been.

Hopefully I'll be able to include something from every parallel story in every chapter from that point forward.

This story is the best I can do as a writer. It's so sporadic because I refuse to give it any less than my best, and it's patchy in places because my best a couple years ago wasn't that great, but I'm proud of the quality of writing and the ideas behind it.

It'll only get better from here.

**~08/29/14**


	7. In Silicate

.**  
>Analogy 7 –<strong> In Silicate

Whenever you enter an unfamiliar place, it smells like something new. It doesn't matter where you are or what kind of place it is, because even the cleanest room still smells like something. Whatever was used to clean it, maybe. The absence of something familiar registering as a thing in and of itself.

The absence of you.

And yeah, it'll change if you spend enough time there. You won't even notice when the constant feeling of being a stranger in someone else's world flips into familiarity; when you breathe in and the air makes sense, smells like air's supposed to. Like home. It's nothing new. It feels like you've been there all your life.

There's no guaranteed way to flip that mental switch. It's nothing concrete. Maybe one day you sit down somewhere and realize you've been sitting there every day for a week, you recognize the view. A positional anchor dropped down by habit. A territorial claim given weight by time.

Maybe it's someone's smile.

Because that's how it's supposed to go, isn't it? You make a friend and you feel at home. It's a relief because there's an anchor dropped, there's something tying you down. You're not gonna float away. You're not gonna die alone. You feel safe. You're supposed to. I'm supposed to. I shouldn't be afraid.

Where is he _taking_ me?

It's not like I know him well. Glances from a doorway don't count for much in the game of trust, but it's the way he looks at me. It's the way everything is, in a new place. Lives shuffle aside to make space for you, and you never know where it'll be. You take what you're given, because it's better than nothing. Learning new ways to be is better than being alone.

It doesn't make my smile come easier, though, when it sinks in that I'm lost. At his mercy. There's something a little twisted in his eyes and it's not fear because I don't get afraid but it's something and it makes me stop in my tracks. It makes him turn around and open his mouth.

I know the sounds that should come out.

_I'm trying to be **friendly**, Natalie._  
>"Initiated. Examining. Ten percent."<p>

And I respond the way I should. The part of me that screams inside is mute and cold. Thoughts stream past in my own voice, drowning her out. I'm watching a film of myself. I don't like that he knows my name; he hasn't earned it.

_Come on, it's just a couple more streets._  
>"Twenty percent. There are anomalies."<p>

There's something in his eyes—_They're dead_—that moves me more than it should. _They haven't moved—_It might be the newness of it all—_an inch since he turned around—_I could just be lonely.

You know what, it can't hurt. _I can't move._ What's the worst that could happen if I go a little wild? _His eyes are painted on_—Been wound so fuckin' tight I guess I just need to—_They are grey and cold—_stop worrying. _Why can't I see it?_

I take his hand in mine and smile. _It feels like nothing._ It's warm—_There is no sensation—_and I want to feel warmer. I lean in closer, and I'm—_terrified—_relaxed, **safe**, for the first time since I moved to this fucking town. I'm not letting go of that. _Run, why won't you fucking—_

_Nat, what—?_  
>"She senses something."<p>

We're eating lunch. It's a Friday. We've been together a while now. I know what he tastes like. I stare at him and think of it and smile and wish we weren't in public but here we are. The two of us. It's not perfect but it's close—I'm happy—and really, that's good enough, isn't it?

There are the times we don't see eye to eye. There are the times I don't feel safe. That's the way of it, though, in a new place.

You take what you're given.

And there are times I—_Eighty percent—_feel like a shell of myself. There are times I know I'm missing something. It's slipping—_Ninety_—away, bit by bit, but I remember meeting him like it was yesterday. It was yesterday. Have I even—_Complete._

The world grinds to a halt. Simple things—raindrops, pedestrians—become inanimate. Years fly away. Logic flies away. Color flies away and I'm in black and white and as we fade to wireframe I know there's been no difference, no _life_, just a series of flickering played-through steps to keep me looking somewhere else. It's grey. There's nothing but his face.

I remember, though.

I never met him. There might have been a guy with his face who waved to me once or twice but I ignored that outstretched hand because that's what you do, isn't it, to strangers who don't look right? His eyes. Not dead eyes, just something wrong with them, something human and dark and wrong. I stuck it out alone. I walked and he followed.

The knife. The white-hot pain in my chest. I remember.

There's nothing of me left. I don't have a mouth to make sounds, a brain to make words but my voice is there nevertheless. It echoes in emptiness.

_I don't even know your **name.**_

He's bright and colorful. His eyes flicker with life.

"I don't have a name."

He smiles, but he doesn't know what smiling's for.

"All distinctions are artificial."

He's saying goodbye.

* * *

><p>"It's calibrated."<p>

* * *

><p>I wake up in a new place. There are mountains in the distance. I call out and nothing comes back but the breeze in my hair, the beat of a dragonfly's wings. There's nothing holding me back, no one pressing me down.<p>

It makes no sense, but it feels like home.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Nothing to say this time. This is really one part of a two-part thing, but I wanted to get it up. More soon.

**~12/07/14**


End file.
